CHAPTER I.

ISLAND OF ST. PAUL. -- THE PORTALS OF THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE. -
THE EXTINCT AUK. -- ANTICOSTI ISLAND. -
ICEBERGS. -- SAILORS' SUPERSTITIONS. - THE ESTUARY OF THE
ST. LAWRENCE. -- TADOUSAC. - THE SAGUENAY RIVER. - WHITE WHALES. - QUEBEC.

While on his passage to the ports of the
St. Lawrence River, the mariner first
sights the little island of St. Paul, situated in
the waste of waters between Cape Ray, the
southwestern point of Newfoundland on the north,
and Cape North, the northeastern projection of
Cape Breton Island on the south. Across this
entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence from cape
to cape is a distance of fifty-four nautical miles;
and about twelve miles east-northeast from Cape
North the island of St. Paul, with its three hills
and two light-towers, rises from the sea with
deep waters on every side.

This wide inlet into the gulf may be called the
middle portal, for at the northern end of
Newfoundland, between the great island and the
coast of Labrador, another entrance exists,
which is known as the Straits of Belle Isle,
and is sometimes called "the shorter passage
from England." Still to the south of the
middle entrance is another and a very narrow one,
known as the Gut of Canso, which separates
the island of Cape Breton from Nova Scotia.
Through this contracted thoroughfare the tides
run with great force.

One hundred years ago, as the seaman
approached the dangerous entrance of St. Paul,
now brightened at night by its light-towers, his
heart was cheered by the sight of immense
flocks of a peculiar sea-fowl, now extinct.
When he saw upon the water the Great Auk
(Alca impennis), which he ignorantly called
"a pengwin," he knew that land was near at
hand, for while he met other species far out
upon the broad Atlantic, the Great Auk, his
"pengwin," kept near the coast. Not only was
this now extinct bird his indicator of proximity
to the land, but so strange were its habits, and
so innocent was its nature, that it permitted
itself to be captured by boat-loads; and thus
were the ships re-victualled at little cost or
trouble. Without any market-value a century
ago, the Great Auk now, as a stuffed skin,
represents a value of fifteen hundred dollars in
gold. There are but seventy-two specimens of
this bird in the museums of Europe and
America, besides a few skeletons, and sixty-five of its
eggs. It was called in ancient days Gare-fowl,
and was the Goiful of the Icelander.

Captain Whitbourne, who wrote in the reign
of James the First, quaintly said: "These
Pengwins are as bigge as Geese, and flye not, for
they have but a little short wing, and they
multiply so infinitely upon a certain flat island that
men drive them from thence upon a board into
their boats by hundreds at a time, as if God had
made the innocency of so poor a creature to
become such an admerable instrument for the
sustenation of man."

In a copy of the English Pilot, "fourth book,"
published in 1761, which I presented to the
library of the United States Coast Survey, is
found this early description of this now extinct
American bird: "They never go beyond the
bank [Newfoundland] as others do, for they are
always on it, or in it, several of them together,
sometimes more but never less than two
together. They are large fowls, about the size
a goose, a coal-black head and back, with a
white belly and a milk-white spot under one of
their eyes, which nature has ordered to be under
their right eye."

Thus has the greed of the sailor and
pothunter swept from the face of the earth an old
pilot -- a trusty aid to navigation. Now the
light-house, the fog-gun, and the improved chart
have taken the place of the extinct auk as aids
to navigation, and the sailor of to-day sees the
bright flashes of St. Paul's lights when nearly
twenty miles at sea. Having passed the little
isle, the ship enters the great Gulf of St.
Lawrence, and passes the Magdalen Islands, shaping
its course as wind and weather permit towards
the dreaded, rocky coast of Anticosti. From the
entrance of the gulf to the island of Anticosti
the course to be followed is northwesterly about
one hundred and thirty-five nautical miles. The
island which divides an upper arm of the gulf
into two wide channels is one hundred and
twenty-three miles long, and from ten to thirty
miles wide. Across the entrance of this great
arm, or estuary, from the high cape of Gaspé
on the southern shore of the mainland to
Anticosti in the narrowest place, is a distance of
about forty miles, and is called the South
Channel. From the north side of the island and near
its west end to the coast of Labrador the North
Channel is fifteen miles wide. The passage from
St. Paul to Anticosti is at times dangerous. Here
is an area of strong currents, tempestuous winds,
and dense fogs. When the wind is fair for an
upward run, it is the wind which usually brings
misty weather. Then, from the icy regions of
the Arctic circle, from the Land of Desolation,
come floating through the Straits of Belle Isle
the dangerous bergs and ice-fields. Early in the
spring these ice rafts are covered with colonies
of seals which resort to them for the purpose of
giving birth to their young. On these icy
cradles, rocked by the restless waves, tens of
thousands of young seals are nursed for a few days;
then, answering the loud calls of their mothers,
they accompany them into the briny deep, there
to follow the promptings of their instincts. The
loud roarings of the old seals on these ice rafts
can be heard in a quiet night for several miles,
and strike terror into the hearts of the
superstitious sailor who is ignorant of the origin of
the tumult.

Frequently dense fogs cover the water, and
while slowly moving along, guided only by the
needle, a warning sound alarms the watchful
master. Through the heavy mists comes the
roar of breaking waters. He listens. The dull,
swashy noise of waves meeting with resistance
is now plainly heard. The atmosphere becomes
suddenly chilled: it is the breath of the
iceberg!

Then the shrill cry of "All hands on deck!"
startles the watch below from the bunks.
Anxiously now does the whole ship's company lean
upon the weather-rail and peer out into the thick
air with an earnestness born of terror. "Surely,"
says the master to his mate, "I am past the
Magdalens, and still far from Anticosti, yet we have
breakers; which way can we turn?" The riddle
solves itself; for out of the gloom come whitened
walls, beautiful but terrible to behold.

Those terror-stricken sailors watch the slowly
moving berg as it drifts past their vessel, fearing
that their own ship will be drawn towards it
from the peculiar power of attraction they believe
the iceberg to possess. And as they watch,
against the icy base of the mountain in the sea
the waves beat and break as if expending their
forces upon a rocky shore. Down the furrowed
sides of the disintegrating berg streamlets trickle,
and miniature cascades leap, mingling their
waters with the briny sea. The intruder slowly
drifts out of sight, disappearing in the gloom,
while the sailor thanks his lucky stars that he has
rid himself of another danger. The ill-omened
Anticosti, the graveyard of many seamen, is yet
to he passed. The ship skirts along its southern
shore, a coast destitute of bays or harbors of
any kind, rock-bound and inhospitable.

Wrecks of vessels strew the rocky shores, and
four light-houses warn the mariner of danger.
Once past the island the ship is well within the
estuary of the gulf into which the St. Lawrence
River flows, contributing the waters of the great
lakes of the continent to the sea. As the north
coast is approached the superstitious sailor is
again alarmed if, perchance, the compass-needle
shows sympathy with some disturbing element,
the cause of which he believes to exist in the
mountains which rise along the shore. He
repeats the stories of ancient skippers, of vessels
having been lured out of their course by the
deviation of the guiding-needle, which
succumbed to the potent influence exerted in those
hills of iron ore; heeding not the fact that the
disturbing agent is the iron on board of his own
ship, and not the magnetic oxide of the distant
mines.

The ship being now within the estuary of the
St. Lawrence River, must encounter many risks
before she reaches the true mouth of the river,
at the Bic Islands.

The shores along this arm of the gulf are wild
and sombre. Rocky precipices frown upon the
swift tidal current that rushes past their bases.
A few small settlements of fishermen and pilots,
like Metis, Father Point, and Rimousky, are
discovered at long intervals along the coast.

In these St. Lawrence hamlets, and
throughout Lower Canada, a patois is spoken which is
unintelligible to the Londoner or Parisian; and
these villagers, the descendants of the French
colonists, may be said to be a people destitute
of a written language, and strangers to a
literature.

While holding a commission from Francis the
First, king of France, Jacques Cartier discovered
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, during his first
voyage of exploration in the new world. He
entered the gulf on St. Lawrence's day, in the
spring of 1534, and named it in honor of the
event. Cartier explored no farther to the west
than about the mouth of the estuary which is
divided by the island of Anticosti. It was
during his second voyage, in the following year,
that he discovered and explored the great river.
Of the desolate shores of Labrador, on the
north coast, he said, "It might as well as not
be taken for the country assigned by God to
Cain."

The distance from Quebec to Cape Gaspé,
measured upon a course which a steamer would
be compelled to take, is four hundred and seven
statute miles. The ship first enters the current
of the river St. Lawrence at the two Bic
Islands, where it has a width of about twenty
miles. By consulting most maps the reader will
find that geographers carry the river nearly two
hundred miles beyond its usual current. In fact,
they appropriate the whole estuary, which, in
places, is nearly one hundred miles in width,
and call it a river -- a river which lacks the
characteristics of a river, the currents of which
vary with the winds and tidal influences, and
the waters of which are as salt as those of the
briny deep.

Here, in the mouth of the river, at the Bics,
secure anchorage for vessels may be found; but
below, in the estuary, for a distance of more
than two hundred and forty-five miles, to Gaspé,
there is but one port of refuge, that of Seven
Islands, on the north coast.

As the ship ascends the river from Bic Islands,
a passage of about one hundred and sixty statute
miles to Quebec, she struggles against a strong
current. Picturesque islands and little villages,
such as St. André, St. Anne, St. Rogue, St. Jean,
and St. Thomas, relieve the monotony. But very
different is the winter aspect of this river, when
closed to navigation by ice from November until
Spring. Of the many tributaries which give
strength to the current of the St. Lawrence and
contribute to its glory, the Saguenay River with
its remarkable scenery is counted one of the
wonders of our continent. It joins the great
river from the north shore, about one hundred
and thirty-four statute miles below Quebec.
Upon the left bank, at its mouth, nestles the
little village of Tadousac, the summer retreat
of the governor-general of the Dominion of
Canada.

American history claims for the Roman
Catholic church of this settlement an age second
only to that of the old Spanish cathedral at St.
Augustine, Florida. For three hundred years
the storms of winter have beaten upon its walls,
but it stands a silent yet eloquent monument of
the pious zeal of the ancient Fathers, who came
to conquer Satan in the wilderness of a new
world. The Saguenay has become the "Mecca"
of northern tourists, ever attracting them with
its wild and fascinating scenery. Capes Eternity
and Trinity guard the entrance to Eternity Bay.
The first towers sublimely to a height of
eighteen hundred feet, the other is only a little
lower. A visit to this mysterious river, with its
deep, dark waters and picturesque views, will
repay the traveller for the discomforts of a long
and expensive journey.

Where the turbulent current of the Saguenay
mingles angrily with that of the St. Lawrence,
there may be seen disporting in the waves the
white whale of aquariums, which is not a whale
at all, but a true porpoise (Delphinopterus
Catodon, as he is now called by naturalists), having
teeth in the jaws, and being destitute of the
fringed bone of the whalebone whales. This
interesting creature is very abundant in the
Arctic Ocean on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides,
and has its southern limits in the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, although one is occasionally seen in
the Bay of Fundy, and it is reported to have
been observed about Cape Cod, on the
Massachusetts coast.

As the ship nears the first great port of the
St. Lawrence River, the large and well
cultivated island of Orleans is passed, and the bold
fortifications of Quebec, high up on the face of
Point Diamond, and flanked by the houses of the
French city, break upon the vision of the mariner.
To the right, and below the city, which
Champlain founded, and in which his unknown
ashes repose, are the beautiful Falls of
Montmorency, gleaming in all the whiteness of their
falling waters and mists, like the bridal veil of a
giantess. The vessel has safely made her
passage, and now comes to anchor in the Basin of
Quebec. The sails are furled, and the heart of
the sailor is merry, for the many dangers which
beset the ship while approaching and entering
the great water-way of the continent are now
over.